Lok Sabha elections 2019: Mukul Sangma, the Congress’ s face in Meghalaya

Mukul Sangma has not lost any state election from Ampati one of the assembly seats in Tura since 1993 when he bade adieu to his two-year-old career as a medical health officer at a public health centre and jumped into politics.

Mukul Sangma contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2004 and again in 2006 but lost both times to the stalwart politician PA Sangma from Tura parliamentary constituency.

Mukul Sangma , the face of the Congress party in Meghalaya, was first elected to the Meghalaya assembly from Ampati constituency as an Independent candidate in 1993. He was then re-elected to the assembly in 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2013 on a Congress ticket. (PTI)

Tura has indeed been PA Sangma’s fort in the northeast, first sending him to the Lok Sabha multiple times since the 1970s. His children Conrad Sangma, now the chief minister of the state, and Agatha Sangma, a former Union Minister and the National People’s Party’s (NPP’s) candidate from Tura, were also elected from the seat.

Mukul Sangma, however, has not lost any state election from Ampati one of the assembly seats in Tura since 1993 when he bade adieu to his two-year-old career as a medical health officer at a public health centre and jumped into politics.

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Sangma, the face of the Congress party in Meghalaya, was first elected to the Meghalaya assembly from Ampati constituency as an Independent candidate in 1993. He was then re-elected to the assembly in 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2013 on a Congress ticket.

Sangma took oath as the chief minister of Meghalaya for the first time in April 2010 after DD Lapang resigned from the post. He got a second straight term in March 2013. In the 2018 assembly election, he won from both Songsak and Ampati seats. He then gave up Ampati to pave way for his daughter Miani D Shira to replace him. Shira won the election against her nearest rival of the NPP G Momin.

Read: All you need to know about Meghalaya

Born on April 20, 1965, to teacher parents Binoy Bhushan M Marak and Roshanara Begum at Ampatigiri, he graduated from the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Imphal in 1990 and joined Zikzak Public Health Centre as a health and medical officer the next year.

This year, Mukul Sangma has a tough fight at hand in Tura in Garo Hills, one of the two constituencies in the northeastern state.